Church of God, New World Ministries

Why God Condemns Pork!

Disease epidemics are on the increase! There are specific reasons why! Flagrant violation of God’s Laws of “Clean and Unclean” meats are an important factor! Scientific facts back up the truth! Pork is unfit for human consumption.

Death stalks the earth on every continent! Worldwide disease epidemics threaten the extinction of the human race.

We have about had it – civilization is doomed! These are the warnings – not of alarmists, but of nationally known educators, scientists, physicians and theologians.

The facts are startling! In this modern pulsating world of scientific achievement – in a world of missile and rockets – the World Health Organization (WHO)  estimate that each year 3.3 million babies are stillborn and over 4 million more die within 28 days of coming into the world.

In the wealthiest nation on earth, half of the total population has some form of chronic disease! One out of very two men, or half our male population, in the United States, will be rendered totally incapacitated by disease in another 8 or 9 years if the present trend of disease and degeneration continues, say leading medical men.

Why have we come to such a state? What are the causes of such worldwide dilemma? Medical Science is alarmed over the present trend of increasing disease. They see disease ahead and no apparent way of stopping the trend.

The handwriting is on the wall. Heart disease is one of the main causes of death in the world today; and fats are one of the major causes of heart disease. Diabetes has increased by eighteen hundred percent.

In 2014 there will be an estimated 1,665,540 new cases diagnosed and 585,720 cancer deaths in the United States. Cancer remains the second most common cause of death in the United States, accounting for nearly 1 of every 4 deaths.

 God prophesied this time of sickness, disease and degeneration over 3,000 years ago. In Deuteronomy 28:15-68 God outlined the condition of our sick dying world! He said conditions are bad, and they are going to get worse – unless we repent and obey His laws of health and the commandments of God!

This dogmatic prophecy from God seems strange to the world. It is difficult for a nonbelieving world to think that God could predict this time of chaos and disease with absolute accuracy.

God, from the beginning, knew that men would disbelieve and ridicule His Word, the Bible (II Peter 3:3; Gen. 6:5). He knew man would defy His written instruction, the truth that, if obeyed, would bring health and happiness.

One of the causes of man’s rapid descent into disease and degeneracy is his disobedience of the little-known section of the Bible found in Leviticus, the 11th chapter and Deuteronomy, chapter 14. It is only one of many reasons – yet it is an extremely important reason for sickness and death!

In the book of Leviticus and Deuteronomy God tells us what meats are fit for human consumption and what meats are harmful. He calls them “clean” and “unclean” meats. This biblical law of health stands as one of the most flagrant examples of breaking of God’s Word! This one violation has caused this world’s population untold numbers of deaths, sickness and disease!

In the future, continued breaking of these laws may be responsible for the death of whole populations! Nevertheless, man will continue to disobey!

He will not listen to his Creator who says, “Of their flesh shall ye not eat and their carcass shall ye not touch; they are unclean to you” (Lev. 11:8).

Why does this have to be? Why does man disobey the truth and then have to suffer the penalty? Is it because God enjoys looking down on a world that is filled with wretched, suffering humanity? A world stumbling along in unhappiness, depravity, sickness and disease? No – just the opposite is true!

As a Father, he “eagerly, earnestly” wants us to follow His directions. He wants us to live by His Word, the Bible, so that we need never suffer. My Word is truth – live by every Word, He says! Yet is seems the only way man can learn obedience is to suffer the penalties of the acts of disobedience until he is reduced to a state of submission.

God is deeply concerned for our good. He is our Creator. He is a God of love, a God that wants to give us every good gift more than we want to give to our own flesh-and-blood children. His love, compassion and mercy are beyond comprehension. At times He literally sits on the edge of His throne pulling for each one of us individually when we are in a trial .He yearns for us to make the right choice, He wants us to obey so that He can bless us with long life, happiness and joy.

“I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth” (III John 4).This pleases God – this makes God very joyful. When we obey His every Word, including Leviticus 11 – then He can prosper and bless us with good health.

Out of all the animals that God pronounced unfit for food, the swine is depicted as the greatest outrage and most obnoxious (Lev. 11 and Deut. 14). God pronounced it an abomination to eat its flesh (Isa. 65:4). God says he is going to come in anger and fury (Isa. 66:15-17) and rebuke with flames of fire those who eat swine’s flesh. In spite of these instructions and warnings, the world continues to disobey and through ignorance or willful disobedience suffers degeneration and physical depravity!

There are many other causes of disease! However, the consumption of millions upon millions of “unclean,” condemned and unfit-for-food animals, such as pork, play an extremely important part in our sick degenerate, disease-ridden population.

Have you ever noticed the habits of swine? They are most often found lying around in a self-created stink-hole all covered with flies! They are so filthy that they will eat their young and feed on their own filth. Yet man insists on eating this creature, in defiance of God, from his snout to his tail, yes, including the tail! We season our food with his mangy old dirty hide and convince ourselves that we cannot do without that old “hog flavor” in one pot of beans.

We have degenerated to the point that even “ministers” approve the eating of swine’s flesh and sanction ham suppers in their own churches. God tells us in Isaiah 65:4 that we eat swine’s flesh and the broth of abominable things are in our vessels. In verse two of the same chapter, God says, “I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walk in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts.”

In every single instance where the Bible refers to swine, it depicts a low state, or the lowest state to which any person can stoop.

In Luke 15:15 the prodigal son was reduced to a complete state of depravity – that of feeding swine! We are told in Matthew 7:6 not to cast pearls (God’s truth) before swine. God compares a woman who does not practice discretion, to the snout of a swine containing a jewel of gold (Prov. 11:22). II Peter 2:22 pictures one who turns from the Holy Commandments of God as likened to a sow that was washed and has returned  to wallowing in the mire.  The first three Gospels, Matthew 8, Mark 5, and Luke 8 show Jesus Christ casting unclean spirits (demons) out of a man. At their own request, the demons are given permission to enter into the unclean flesh of a herd of swine. The entire herd was destroyed!

    Swine are scavengers; their bodies are reservoirs of disease. Their flesh is susceptible to a greater number of diseases than any other domestic animal, with most of their ills transmissible to man.

Dr. J. H. Kellogg, M.D has stated that it is quite certain that pork and pork products are a contributing factor of cancer.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture Yearbook, 1942 lists over 40 diseases and parasites of swine! Some of the diseases passed from swine to man are trichinosis, tapeworm, swine erysipelas, swine influenza, roundworm, undulant fever, food poisoning, hog cholera, boils and a host of others.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture Yearbook, 1956, reported the following statistics relating to swine disease. In 1954, ten-and-one-half million hogs and pigs died of disease and parasites with 30 million lost from the same cause before weaning. Annual losses from swine disease are believed to exceed 500 million dollars at a minimum!

In 1954, federal meat inspectors condemned 99,000 swine for 50 different causes. Arthritis abscesses and pleurisy accounted for half of the condemnations. However, in the same year “parts” of over 1,600,000 swine carcasses were condemned. The remainder of their carcasses was eaten!

Out of 63 million animals inspected before entering a certain packing plant, the following number was condemned: 18 cattle, 11 sheep, 2,793 swine, 1 calf, goats, none. Note the high incidence of disease in swine compared with cattle and sheep. The above report is by the Chief of the Bureau of Animal Industry.

In a given year, 116,558,906 hogs were slaughtered in the U.S. Only 65 percent of them were inspected for tuberculosis. More than 5 million were found to have the disease, yet only 42,381 were condemned!

Trichinosis is a little-known disease or parasite, cyst and worm which thrives in the flesh of certain animals and humans. They settle chiefly in the muscles and intestines. Only those animals pronounced unfit for human consumption by God can, under normal conditions, become infected with the trichinosis parasite! Herbivorous domestic animals such as cattle, sheep and goats do not become infected with the parasite since they are not scavengers and do not eat meat.

 From the Yearbook of Agriculture 1942, p. 791-792, only the unfit (“unclean”) animals of Leviticus and Deuteronomy 14 are listed as host of trichinosis. Those mentioned are the bear, fox, badger, martin, raccoon, otter, mongoose, hedgehog, squirrel, rabbits, guinea pigs, rats and mice.

Trichinosis was discovered quite accidentally in 1835 when a medical student was dissecting the muscles of a human body. Small gritty spots dulled the edge of his scalpel during post-mortem. Investigation revealed that they were cysts containing organism later termed encysted parasites or trichinella spiralis.

In 1860 the parasite was discovered as the cause of death in a 19-year-old German girl. The disease was first diagnosed as typhoid fever. Death came as a result of eating raw sausage a month or so before!

  Of all the animals slaughtered in the United States only the hog can transmit trichinosis. There is no known system of inspection that can guarantee pork safe for human consumption. So says the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

According to livestock experts, the hog is one of the most efficient producers of flesh. Therefore, farmers are advised to raise more hogs in the interest of their feed dollar. We should question whether or not the flesh is quality flesh! We need to ask ourselves why the hog can produce flesh so much more rapidly and do it more economically than clean animals.

The digestive system of the hog is the key to its ability to gain weight so quickly. His digestive system is entirely different from that of the clean animals that chew the cud as the cow and sheep as differentiated in Lev. 11 and Deut. 14. A cow will, for example, take as long as 24 hours to convert grasses and grain into flesh. However, the hog is able to change any food including the poison-laden waste of the land into flesh in only three or four hours and gain far more weight per pound of food consumed. Both the cow and sheep have, for all practical purposes, three stomachs. As a result of their more elaborate digestive systems, the clean animals are able to refine and convert grain and grass into sound, clean flesh.

Some will say, “Why not give the hog clean food, then his flesh will also be pure.” It is true, the hog will eat grain. However, his desire is for unclean foods since God created him to be a scavenger. Giving the hog clean food will not change his digestive system nor will it make his flesh fit for food. The hog is an unclean animal! Man cannot change its habits or its flesh.

In spite of all the reports to the contrary, most authorities believe there is not a great deal of difference in the digestibility of lean meats. By measuring the rate meat passes from the stomach, it is found that lamb is a little more digestible than beef, and that pork is less digestible than beef. Slowest to digest of all, are fried pork chops, fried ham and bacon (Food and Principles of Dietetics, p. 364).

Directly beneath the skin of the hog is a layer of fat. The layer varies in a mature hog. In some cases it has been known to measure six inches in thickness!

Because of the thick layer of fat and the slow circulation of blood, the hog can successfully withstand even snake bites! The hog seems to have an inner urge to seek out and destroy snakes. Strictly speaking, a hog is not immune to snake venom. However, they have something as good as immunity – that thick layer of fat just beneath the skin. The venom is deposited in this fat layer and absorbed so gradually that no harm results. The slow circulation of blood in a hog is documented in the following report. “It is more difficult to bleed a hog than any other domestic animal” (Meat and Meat Products, p. 69).

God’s instructions are not to eat the fat or the blood (Lev. 3:17; Lev. 7:25). Both harbor the poisons and diseases of the flesh. The bloodstream is the life of the body. It carries the nutrients to all parts of the body. The blood then returns the poisons, dead cells, and tissues and carries them to the various organs in the body for excretion. If an animal is diseased or laden with poison and we eat the blood or fat, we then help ourselves to a concentrated diet of disease and poison!

God is the Lawgiver, the Maker and Redeemer. He is the Master Dietitian. It’s about time we wake up and realize that His instructions to us in all things were given in love and concern for our welfare.

Vitamin and mineral content are not the proof for determining what is food! Unclean animals, such as pork, do provide energy. They do contain vitamins and minerals. So does grass and poison ivy! When pork is used as food for the human body, it leads to degeneration, contamination and disease!

 Pork, for example, has more vitamin B-1 than other meat. It is also rated as having the highest calorie content, 100 calories per ounce (because of high fat content) compared to 44 calories for fish. Other unclean scavengers such as oysters and crabs are also rich in certain minerals. However, their flesh, just like pork, when ingested into the human body, builds sick degenerate human flesh that is susceptible to most every disease that comes along.

Many shellfish are especially rich in phosphorus and iodine, but they are also rich in disease. Shellfish are cold-blooded creatures feasting on the poisons and the wastes of rivers, lakes and oceans. When their flesh is ingested into the human body and in warm-blooded animals, the disease that has been dormant in the shellfish, because of cold water and design, become active. Thus the good of the vitamin and mineral is offset by the harmful effects of disease-laden flesh. Even without disease and poisons their flesh is harmful to man in the end.

From the Medical and Health Encyclopedia comes the following report on mussels and shellfish:

‘Do not eat the visceral (dark meat of the mussel) or drink the juice from mussels, clams, or similar shellfish from the open Pacific Coast between the first of May and the first of November.” The reason – the mussel and other shellfish feed on plankton as well as waste material. Plankton feed on a microscopic germ organism that grows in the ocean. “The poison developed by the germ organism on which the plankton feed has been analyzed and found to be one of the strongest poisons known! So powerful is this poison that one-millionth of a gram is sufficient to kill a mouse if it is injected into its body. A fatal dose by mouth (contaminated shellfish) for human beings is just a few milligrams, or a thousandth of a gram. When the mussel takes in the plankton (which eat this poison plankton), they store the poison in their digestive glands. This poison is not harmful to the mussels but is harmful to the person who eats them” (The Medical and Health Encyclopedia, p. 1604).

What is the purpose of the mussel and other shellfish? They were created like the swine to clean the earth of refuse. The mussel has special created abilities to consume even poisonous material in order to rid the sea of poison and waste.

You can be sure God knew what He was talking about when He said: “These shall ye eat of all that are in the waters: whatsoever hath fins and scales in the waters, in the seas, and in the rivers, then shall ye eat. And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be abomination unto you. They shall be even an abomination unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcasses in abomination. Whatsoever hath no finds nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you” (Lev. 11:9-12).

When God said, “Every moving thing that lives shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things” (Gen. 9:3). He did not include unclean animals. He made it crystal clear what he meant in Lev. 11 and Deut. 14).

Many people think this verse in Genesis 9 gives permission to eat any and all meats. Let us look again! Gods says, “Even as I have given you the green herb.” How has he given the green herb? Do we eat poison ivy and poison oak? Of course not! Even as we do not eat all green herbs we do not eat the unfit or “unclean’ meats. Everything that was created was not created for the purpose of being eaten!

When we look to God’s Word (John 17:17) and not our own interpretation (II Peter 1:20) of what God has written, we find that the Bible really means what it says, there are no contradictions, God still hasn’t changed, only man changes!

God did have a purpose in creating each animal. He is a God of order and purpose, the hog was created to be a scavenger. He was made to help clean the earth of refuse and filth. In order to eat the putrefied waste of the land, the hog came equipped with a special sewerage system through which he is able to eliminate the poison he consumes. On each foreleg, just above the hoofs, is an opening which is connected by a series of tubes to all parts of the hog’s body. Through these two openings the hog eliminates a puss-like fluid of wastes and poison.

Man has domesticated the hog which God created to roam the forest. He has gone contrary to God’s law and penned this animal up in a pigsty restricting his movements until the hog is forced to wallow in his own filth. As a result the hog has become riddled with disease. The stench that arises from his sty is so atrocious that horses must be taught and forced to pass by the ill-smelling pigsty. Man has again reasoned in his own mind “the way that seems right,” contrary to God’s law.

In the beginning God gave man the clean and the unclean animals (Gen. 1:24; 7:8). There are literally volumes of proof that man was created and made to consume the flesh of clean animals as a food.

Briefly, a few scriptures are: Genesis 18, where our father Abraham set table of a tender calf. He and these men (angels) “did eat,” verse 8. A New Testament scripture is found in Luke 15:11-32, the parable of the prodigal son that ate of the fatted calf. In Luke 24:42 Jesus Christ ate fish with the disciples.” These are the beasts which ye shall eat among all the beasts that are on the earth (Lev. 11:2), that’s a command! Finally in Romans 14, God says he who is weak eats only herbs or vegetables.

The flesh of animals created by God for food is good. God said so (Gen. 1:25). Their meat supplies vital nutrients and protein for a balanced diet. Our major concern should be to eat only these animals created for food. Not everything that moves, shakes or quivers is good for human consumption. This should be increasingly clear as we look into the subject on pork.

 When we ignore God’s instruction, the Bible, and continue to eat the unclean meats in defiance of God’s prescribed law, we are like a purchaser who selects the wrong fuel for his new car. If he buys cheap fuel not designed for the engine, he will soon run into trouble. The carburetor will gum up, the fuel lines will clog and the fuel pump will wear out before its time. Yet the car will run for a time.

When we eat swine, shellfish, rabbit, squirrel, etc. our carburetors (stomachs), fuel lines (arteries and veins), and fuel pumps (heart), begin to clog up and finally we begin to sputter, miss and break down before our allotted time. We become susceptible to disease! Heart trouble begins to skyrocket. Cancer increases to the point that it becomes the second greatest killer in the United States.

Men want to argue with the manufacturer. He has thrown away the Bible, the instruction manual and decided matters for himself based on what seems or looks right! Man has decided that he knows more than God, his Creator. He has chosen to ignore the wisdom of God who has created the human body so marvelous that scientists have termed it the world’s greatest chemistry laboratory, a complex and complicate creation.

As a result of our disobeying God’s laws, including the eating of unclean and diseased flesh of swine and abominable things, the United States has become a sick diseased nation. Sickness and disease is rampant around the world. Epidemics are on the increase!

We are in confusion! This is not God’s way (I Cor. 14:33). When we go our own way, doing what we think right without the instructions of God, then we end up in death (Prov. 14:12).

This is exactly what has happened as prophesied by God! Man has rejected God’s way (Hosea 4:6). There is more death, sickness and disease today than in all the history of mankind in spite of more hospitals, more sanitation, and in spite of more so-called knowledge, wonder drugs and science.

An example of physical heath, because of obedience to God’s laws on clean and unclean meats, occurred during the Middles Ages. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were violently massacred during the Middle Ages by the populace because of the bubonic plague. They were accused of causing the plague. Some believed they were procuring poisons from the Orient and poisoning the wells. The Jews were convicted and murdered all because they were not seriously affected by the plague! Their diet was clean! The Jews abstained, lived cleaner lives and had more temperate habits. They ate only the clean meats of Leviticus 11. (Outline of Jewish History, p. 163; A History of the Jewish People, p. 405).

In addition to cleaning up the earth, God also created clean and unclean animals for the purpose of allowing man to choose. If there were no choices, whole chapters such as Deuteronomy 28 and 30 would not be needed in the Bible. In fact, we wouldn’t need the Bible, we would be perfect, we would be God!

God’s way is the right way! He has set before us the blessings and the curses and told us to choose. We are to choose right (Deut. 30:19). By building character, by choosing right, by overcoming, we are to become God. The choice is yours! Obey God, eat only that which was created for food – and God will bless you with long life and good health!

 
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